Change.
It has happened.
It is happening.
It will happen.
Spiritually, It has happened...
If your faith is genuinely in Christ, you are not what you once were. There are many passages in the Bible that talk about this. Jesus had a conversation with Nicodemus about being 'born' a second time. (John 3) Jude writes about 'the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.' (Jude :3) Peter writes to Christians about not forgetting that they have been purged from their old sins. (2 Peter 1:9) John agrees by writing that Christians 'have passed from death to life.' (1 John 3:14) A particularly well-known verse is from Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:17. 'Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.'
This transformation is complete in the lives of believers. It is as secure, steadfast, unchanging and solid as God's nature. You can count on it! The tough thing is that it's a spiritual change. We can find hard to trust what God says about us when our circumstances are staring us in the face! That's why we need to remind ourselves and each other so often!
Mentally, it is happening...
With our spiritual transformation behind us, we are then called to grow in our understanding of who we are in Christ. Peter told the early believers to 'grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.' (2 Peter 3:4) Another popular verse about this was again written by Paul to the Roman Christians to 'be transformed by the renewing of your mind.' (Romans 12:2) The tense of this command is continual. A literal translation might be more like 'be being transformed' or 'be continually transformed.' The entire Bible is filled to the brim with passages talking about growing in our understanding of God's love and grace.
This is not about just getting more head-knowledge. When you get a chance, read 1 Corinthians 1&2. Paul has some pretty strong words there about relying on knowledge. What God wants is not for us to know lots of things, but rather to know Him! Head knowledge causes our minds to puff up, but heart understanding helps us to grow up!
Physically, it will happen...
We look backwards at our spiritual change, commit ourselves to the current process of mental adjustment, and we also wait and hope for the change which is yet to come, which is physical. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15 about the bodily transformation that awaits all believers. Our bodies will be free from disease, pain, or weakness and unhindered by the effects of aging. Paul may well have had this in mind when he said that to live was Christ and to die was gain!
Let us remember our spiritual transformation with gratitude, grow in our mental grasp of that transformation, and yearn for the day of the final physical transformation!
13 March 2006
changing our thinking about change
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